Dolce & Gabbana benefits from lingerie boom

By Dini S. Djalal

JAKARTA (JP): Modern-day feminist films such as The First Wives Club may be making headlines (and the cover of Time magazine), but Wonderbra ads are stopping the traffic.

Grown men across Europe and the United States pine and pant at billboards glorifying the lingerie-enhanced cleavage of model Eva Hervazigova.

Men aren't the only ones turning their heads. The garment industry is in a slump, but lingerie sales are skyrocketing. Department stores are giving more space to underwear. According to Harper's Bazaar magazine, giant underwear manufacturer Warnaco, which supplies Calvin Klein, Victoria's Secret and Warner's, reported a 52 percent increase in profits last year.

Women are still pushing for equal opportunities, but they are no longer burning their bras. Instead, they are addressing boardrooms dressed in their best lingerie.

Even high fashion is taking a ladylike turn. As models sashayed down catwalks in rose-printed filmy dresses, the 1997 Spring Collections, from Prada to Versace, unveiled a return to unabashed femininity. This is good news for Dolce & Gabbana, the Italian design house famous for curvy fashions and lingerie styles. Their Spring Collection too showed flower-power and sheer sensuality -- a modification of their Fall 1996 collection.

The sexy siren formula has served 37-year-old Domenico Dolce and 33-year-old Stefano Gabbana well. The revenue of Dolce & Gabbana, whose empire sells shoes, underwear, perfumes, and household furnishings, shot up to US$180 million in 1995, a 45 percent increase on 1994. And considering their outrageous looks -- sheer skirts over lace panties, corsets and bustierres as outerwear -- their success story is an unlikely one.

And the image of the Sicilian vamp knows no geographical boundaries. There are 15 Dolce & Gabbana boutiques around the world, the latest being a Jakarta franchise in the Galeria Grand Hyatt, managed by the Singapore-based Glamourette Group of Shops. Glamourette held a Dolce & Gabbana fashion show last week at Jalan-Jalan discotheque in Menara Imperium.

Although the club's dim lighting was not good for clear viewing, the show was a spectacle. It was eye-popping, not for the models' tedious dancing and gyrating, but for the finely- tailored and luxurious clothes they wore. A bad attitude is too much for these come-hither outfits; what works is non-chalance.

After all, Dolce & Gabbana pushes that fine line between good and bad taste, between sensuality and sluttishness. It's a fine line many women are hesitant to explore. Societal norms and personal modesty still make many working women uneasy about flaunting their feminine charms.

"I couldn't get used to the bras peeping out," said 29 year- old Manuela, a European living in Jakarta, referring to the bustierres intentionally flowing over plunging necklines.

And there were a lot of peeping bras. Kioen Moe, General Manager of Jakarta's Dolce & Gabbana boutique, admitted that not many Indonesians buy the bras, "except maybe models", but they are integral to the Dolce & Gabbana look. Kioen added that Italians snap up the bras like hotcakes.

Kioen also said customers may wear the bras and corsets in a more subtle way. "It depends on the creativity of the person wearing it," she said.

On evening wear, Kioen said the bras were designed to be seen under see-through gowns. "They are the same as bodysuits, only more structured," she said.

Constructing a feminine figure is, after all, what drives Dolce & Gabbana. The show began with a woman in a black bra- girdle -- the kind your mother wore under her kebaya -- and nothing else, save black stockings, black heels and a black head- scarf, Sicilian-widow-style. Other corsets and velvet slips followed. The untrained eye may murmur in sympathy, "Poor girl forgot to put some clothes on".

But poor girl the Dolce & Gabbana woman is not. The clothes may be tarty, but they are 300-percent luxurious. The rose- printed peasant dress and matching house-coat may not look like much from afar, but feel the fabric: it is the richest velvet. The cherry-patterned wisp of a gown? It's sheerest silk chiffon.

Shirts are in satin, printed shoes are in felt, sweater-sets are in cashmere, bell-shaped suits are in the finest tweed. A typical Dolce & Gabbana bra costs more than Rp 1 million; a head- to-toe outfit (coat and accessories included) may cost as much as a small car, at least the duty-free national-car variety. These may not be serious clothes, but they are seriously expensive.

And seriously pretty. Amid the current climate of geek chic and minimalism, Dolce & Gabbana's print-wild concoctions are in a world of their own. Sure, their knee-length skirts are part of the dowdy silhouette so revered by the fashion elite, but in leopard-prints, and paired with bras or matching cardigans, they are anything but matronly.

The fit also suggests pool-side cocktails rather than a librarian lifestyle. Whether for knits, suits, or hipsters, the but is small and tight, so tight that the wearer can barely breathe a "ho-hum". More frenzied speech or activity may tear the fragile chiffon evening-wear, carefully slipped over bodices and 1950s panties. What this means to the women's movement is unclear -- some may say feminine fashions empower women, others may argue that sex-pot looks discredit their abilities.

Indeed, perhaps the most the Dolce & Gabbana woman can mutter in these revealing structured clothes is a husky "hello" to the Dolce & Gabbana man. Being a male design team, Dolce & Gabbana put equal thought into their men's collection.

Again, the theme is Italian. But whereas the women's collection is about the tear-drenching Sicilian widow, the men's collection (at least this season) salutes the city-wise book- poring intellectual. They wear camel pullovers and thick cardigans over white shirts and ties, leather jackets over turtlenecks, flat-fronted slim trousers over brogues, and horn- rimmed glasses with a serious stare. Coats are either cavernous or stream-lined, Mod-style. This sleek style may be unsuitable when riding a Vespa scooter, and the purple and brown velvet suits may be too funky for conservative Mods.

At least the collection was not too Seventies -- a refreshing change. Shirts were close to the body, but there were few flyaway colors. Some of the bulky cardigans had an Archie-Bunker feel to them, but awkward fashions belong to every era. In general the clothes for men and women, especially the streamlined knits, were modern with a classic touch.